Album Themes

Bulldozer

AllMusic Review
by Fred Thomas

Prolific Brooklyn-based songwriter Kevin Devine called on his fans to help fund not one, but two new albums in 2013, starting a Kickstarter campaign and reaching his goal of $50,000 in donations in less than a single day. The campaign would go on to more than double that goal, and of the two resultant records (the other being Bubblegum, a high-energy collaboration with his friends in the Goddamn Band), Bulldozer was credited as a solo album, bringing Devine's culturally critical and often political lyrics a little higher in the mix along with the acoustic guitars. Without losing any of the distortion, Devine's approach is clear-headed and direct, melding the indie pop mysticism of Neutral Milk Hotel or Elliott Smith's tunesmithery with the political conscience of Billy Bragg.